


wish upon a star (he will come and get you)

by HoneyCoconut



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Keith makes a wish, Lonely Keith (Voltron), Lonely Shiro (Voltron), M/M, Shiro is a shooting star
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 18:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21257981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneyCoconut/pseuds/HoneyCoconut
Summary: Lonely and desperate for company, Keith wishes upon a shooting star.And Shiro will always come when Keith calls.





	wish upon a star (he will come and get you)

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't edited or even read over, I'm sorry for any mistakes that happened, I just needed to get this out of my system :(

Keith is _lonely_.

A mother that left – and while he’s not sure if she left him on purpose, he cannot help but feel that way – a father taken by the fire. Friends who didn’t care for him enough to stick to him through the loss of his dad and his home. A garrison that booted him, simply because he is angry, and alone, and easy to get rid of.

After all, he is simply the best, but not the only pilot with good scores.

And on the roof of his shack, next to the charred ruins of his and his father’s old house, looking up into the cold night and the glittering stars, it hits him where physical punches could never reach.

His throat burns, but not with fire or heat.

It might be late evening, or midnight, or early morning, but it does not matter. The desert is not like the city, where it is bright even at midnight. In the desert, once the sun has sunk below the horizon, it is dark. There is barely any telling between the minutes after sunset and the hours during the night.

Keith can only look at the moon, an ivory crescent in the spilt-ink sky, and guess at the time.

But tonight, there is no moon.

There is the milky way, a ribbon of scattered diamonds, so beautiful it hurts, and so distant, so, so far away; there are the long-cold tiles under Keith’s hands; the desert, with its sand that dances across the dunes in the wind; there is Keith, wrapped in his father’s old fireman’s jacket which has always kept warmth so well.

Contrary to popular belief, people rescued from fires, whether they have been burned or not, get cold easily. The fire drags them into icy shock, and more often than not, nobody notices how blue those darlings’ fingertips turn.

Looking up at the stars, Keith questions if his fingers would be blue, if he looked. His body has become numb to physical sensation after so long on the roof. He would not be able to tell in the dark anyways.

And his body is numb, but it all aches so very much.

It is nothing in particular that causes Keith’s eyes to sting and his throat to close up.

But he has been in the desert for a long time now, and he has been lonely for much longer.

He has much time to think.

Too much, far too much time.

He lays back against the roof, and counts the stars, because counting them is better than remembering when he was so close to reaching them. He missed that chance, and he won’t have it again.

Not because he wouldn’t pass the exams, and not because of the way he pilots.

He won’t reach the stars because he does not have the energy to try again.

Even as he longs for the sky, and everything beyond.

With no anchor on earth, his heart has drifted off into space, into its anti-gravity, away from the gravity that makes it so hard to breathe.

It has drifted away, and he has lost contact.

Has lost himself.

_Because it just couldn’t be enough to lose everything else._

He is distracted by a shooting star streaking through the endless dark.

It is the first shooting star he has seen this year.

He doesn’t believe in shooting stars that grant wishes.

But he doesn’t believe in anything else either.

It is the first shooting star he ever wishes upon.

He doesn’t know what he wishes for, only that he aches for happiness, for laughter, for smiles and jokes, for love and a friend and someone to understand and someone to love.

He wishes, begs the shooting star silently, and then, because he realises how truly pathetic he is being, a bitter laugh breaks out of him, sharp and sudden and short.

He closes his eyes, and pretends the corners of his mouth aren’t trembling with too much tension to release in any way he knows, and pretends there aren’t tears painting tracks through the desert dust on his face.

If there is no one to hear his sobs but him and the shooting star, so far away, then is he really crying?

* * *

Shiro is lonely.

It’s really no surprise: floating through space without aim or end in sight _is _lonely.

Distraction is rare and treasured, and he can count on one hand the times people have wished upon him, and he has obliged – lucky for him, as he has only one hand left.

Or at least he tells himself that it is lucky.

Streaking past a little blue marble, he hears the whisper of one wish only, but it is a wish with the weight of a thousand wishes, and he is curious, and maybe he has been lonelier for longer than he can tolerate, and so he allows himself to tumble into the atmosphere, following this quiet, strong voice.

Landing is a disaster.

He crashes into rocks and sand and dirt, and the bridge of his nose stings an awful lot. Still, it is the endorphins that dizzy him.

For the first time, he is standing, walking, running in circles and whooping with joy. He is cold, except for where hot blood drips down his skin.

Then he’s staggering off in the direction his chest tugs him to, to the voice with the same wish as his own.

* * *

There is a too-skinny boy, draped in a too-big jacket, asleep on a roof.

Shiro does not know what to do.

The sky turns red while he stands there, a few metres away from the rundown shack. It turns orange and yellow and blue, skipping green.

The star rising over the horizon is bright in a blinding way, and Shiro is forced to turn his eyes from the boy lest he stare into the light too long.

He does not know what to do, but he does not need to know, for the star shines directly into the boy’s face, waking him regardless of how long he might or might not have slept.

And the boy sits, rubs at his eyes, and makes to climb off the roof. Shiro has never met someone else, shooting star or mortal or deity. But he can tell this one is graceful.

When the boy walks around the shack to the front door, he turns the corner and spots Shiro standing there. He freezes, and blinks a few times, and even from a distance the sweep of the boy’s dark lashes is beautiful.

“Hello,” Shiro croaks, his voice rough and hidden from lack of use. He clears his throat, starts coughing, then tries again. “Hello.”

He tentatively walks closer to the boy, who still stares at Shiro.

“You’re naked,” the boy says with his sleep-heavy voice, confusion ringing clear as breaking glass.

“Yes,” Shiro says, and takes a few steps closer, until he and the boy are only two arms’ length apart.

“Oh.” The boy is silent for a bit. “You’re bleeding.”

It is then that the boy seems to gain control of himself again, because he frowns, tugs at the sleeve of his jacket, and gestures at the shack.

“I-I’ll fix you up,” he offers quietly.

Shiro knows the boy will.

The shack is dusty and cramped inside, and Shiro coughs, which makes the cut on his nose bite into him angrily.

He learns that the boy is called ‘Keith’, and that he is beautiful, despite the red rims around his eyes. Keith has him sit on a scratchy couch, naked as he is, and cleans his wounds with a gentleness and precision that stuns Shiro.

Every little one move Keith makes, Shiro watches. He watches how Keith’s long hands shake ever so slightly, and how his brows furrow in concentration, and how his cheeks turn pinker underneath his sunburn when he bandages his thighs.

He watches how small and tense Keith is, and sees his bruised knuckles. Sees his tangled hair and dirty skin, sees his pretty eyes, chasing for something he does not know, and the long-familiar, angry, desperate set of his mouth.

“I’m Takashi Shirogane,” he tells Keith after the boy has given him clothes that are too big to be his own, helping him tie off the sleeve so it won’t hang at Shiro’s side sadly. Keith’s eyes dart to him in what Shiro thinks is surprise. They look at each other for a few seconds, both trying to assess why the other is as familiar as the revolutions of moons around planets and planets around stars.

“It’s nice to meet you, Takashi,” Keith says at last, with his voice that is rough and throaty from disuse, almost as much as Shiro’s. He looks down at the wooden floorboards, and then he says, “you can help me make breakfast. If you want.”

Shiro is not sure what breakfast is, but he stands from the couch and follows Keith to help him anyways.

Later, they will go outside and Keith will tell him that the star in the sky is called ‘sun’.

They will not talk about who, what, Shiro is and where he comes from. They will not talk much at all, at first. Instead, Keith will make space for him in his little home, and they will never discuss that Shiro might go somewhere else.

They will stay up late many nights, and let that familiarity in their very bones grow into something they will not bother to articulate, because they will understand.

Keith will let Shiro tend to his invisible wounds just how Shiro let Keith tend to his physical ones.

The first time Keith laughs, loud and full-bellied, it will be the brightest thing Shiro has seen in all his life, and he will call Keith his little sun.

And they will be alone in the desert, but they will not be lonely.


End file.
